


Like Smoke

by softieghost



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Death, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friendship, Getting Together, Grief, Hauntings, Humor, I mean hope it's funny, Like other peoples death dont worry, M/M, Mild Gore, Mortuary AU, Slow Burn, Supernatural - Freeform, Supernatural AU - Freeform, frank discussions of what the state will do to you when you die, ghost au, going adventuring, no there wont be corpse fucking so sorry if youre into that, not morbid tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2020-05-15 11:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19294663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softieghost/pseuds/softieghost
Summary: Shiro, a once-if-brief corpse, finds working in a mortuary therapeutic. He had died, now he helps the dead. Until he starts getting haunted. That kinda sucks.Chapter Four: Keith and Shiro search out the psychic Allura, hoping she can help answer questions about ghostliness. Instead, even more questions are raised.





	1. The Woman

**Author's Note:**

> Looking to see if theres any interest here in my creepy mortuary au. If you're a deathling like me, drop a comment or a kudos! 
> 
> Death doesn't have to be scary.

Shiro looked down at the body before him. The dead man was a huge, hulking figure. He was so large his limbs nearly slid off the table he lay on no matter how diligently Shiro crossed the man’s arms. The man has one eye half open, and his mouth gaped, looking a bit like a drunk uncle attempting to wink in a Christmas photo. His skin was bright red, much redder than a normal hue and surpassing even drunkenness in a living person. His hair was thinning at the crown of his head, and purge was sticking to his nostrils, flaking into his moustache and bushy white beard. It had been dislodged, presumably, in the bumpy car ride over to  _ Atlas Crematorium and Burial.  _ He looked like a drunken, grinning Santa Claus. Only, you know, dead.

Mr. Claus (ne Thompson) had been found alone in his apartment on December 26th, collapsed of a massive heart attack after celebrating with his neighbors and friends. A little old lady from the floor below him had run upstairs to return a dish she had borrowed and was surprised to find the door to his apartment still unlocked, and his Christmas music still playing, as if he were still hosting a party and waiting for guests to arrive. Mr. Thompson was face down in a pool of his own vomit, dead as a doornail. 

He had been autopsied, as evident by the Y-incision on his massive, hairy chest. He was jaundiced, splotchy, and bloating despite the less-than-forty-degree refrigerator in the mortuary’s basement. And, as usual, his family wished for just one last viewing. 

One last viewing meant Shiro, the mortuary’s assistant director, needed to prepare the body. The family was not paying for an embalming, since Mr. Thompson was to be cremated directly after the viewing, so Shiro was working  _ au naturale.  _

Shiro enjoyed his work. He felt connected to the corpses he worked with, considering he had once been a corpse, if only for a few minutes, but that did not mean he enjoyed cleaning purge from nostrils with q-tips, or working against time to avoid skin slip in a corpse found in a bathtub, or cleaning out bed sores. 

Luckily, Mr. Thompson’s face was okay. Not perfect, but certainly not the worst. There was no mold. 

Shiro cleaned, plumped, and beautified Mr. Thompson as best he could. He sometimes found applying mortuary makeup to men was much more difficult than women. Families were significantly less appalled if they noticed the “natural” makeup on Grandma than with Grandpa. Their teenage son, passed from some horrible disease should not have eyeliner on. Their teenage daughter, well, families sometimes joked that “she would have wanted to look her best”. Even in death, the rules of life applied. 

So, Shiro worked as sparsely as possible. He toned down the blotchy red patches as best he could, ensured the eye caps were secure under Mr. Thompson’s eyelids, and double-triple checked his gums were wired shut securely. The last thing anyone needed was a slack-jawed corpse in the Crematory’s chapel. 

Shiro finished his work, dressed Mr. Thompson, and wheeled the gurney into the chapel. 

Technically, he should have had a partner help him get Mr. Thompson into the casket at the altar of the chapel. Unfortunately, he was the only one in the mortuary at the moment. Luckily, Shiro was rather large himself. Using a not-quite-patented method of pulling on sheets, lifting, bending, hoisting, and a little sweating, Mr. Thompson was delicately (kinda) placed into his casket. 

His family, a group of thirty or so people, began to file in about half an hour later. They, too, were all hulking, red-faced people. They took up twice the amount of space an average group of thirty would take. It wasn’t as if they were all just fat, or something like that, but they all appeared to be vikings, or perhaps white sumo wrestlers. Muscle, height, long hair, all of it compiled into thirty huge relatives wailing over their passed family member. 

Shiro lingered around the doorway as he waited for the family to finish. Well, not finish, because he knew their grief would not end once the body was cremated and placed in their chosen urn. But, instead, finish whatever personal ritual the group felt compelled to perform. Even in groups of similar backgrounds Shiro knew that no two groups would be alike. 

This family huddled, a bit like a football team, all in enormous black, around the casket of their deceased loved one. They seemed to all talk at once, creating a low drone of voices and the occasional hiccuping cry breaking the hum at random. 

Shiro watched as the family, all in their motionless football huddle buzzed around the body of Mr. Thompson. He waited, silently, as he always did while mourners completed their cultural and familial rituals, before they were ready to allow the body to be placed in a cardboard box and slid into the cremation machine out in the back room, out of sight. They would pick up the ashes three-to-five days later, and the next step of mourning, “moving on”, would commence. 

He watched as...a trickle of smoke lifted from the middle of the football huddle. 

Shiro cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, you can’t smoke in here.” He began to walk to the huddle, to gently and kindly tell the mourners that no matter how much the deceased had begged them to “talk about me over cigars and whiskey” they could not smoke in any part of the building. Nevada state law, you know, not his call and all that. 

The smoke didn’t stop, easing above the crowd in a small trail, floating up as if the mists of sadness itself were hovering around the family flag football team. 

A small gasp, and an “oh no!” alerted Shiro to something more shocking. 

The football team scattered to the field of the chapel, and Shiro saw a white votive candle, presumably smuggled into the chapel and lit, sideways in the casket and lighting all the delicate sheets and polyester clothes aflame. 

Shiro hauled proverbial ass to the hallway, grabbed the fire extinguisher and sprayed the body of Mr. Thompson and the viewing casket down. 

If he looked like Santa Claus before, he certainly looked like Santa Claus now, buried in an open snow grave. 

He sighed, hand brushing the snow foam away from the edge of the casket. 

\---

Shiro loved his job. He really did. But that wasn’t to say every day was easy, or left him with a smile on his face. Some days were hard - when he had to cremate small children, or babies. Some days were long - when the city released the indigent dead once a year. Some days were strange, when a family accidentally lights their loved one on fire with a votive candle. 

He came back to it day after day because he had the feeling that he was helping the deceased that came across his mortuary table. He knew they had wishes, and desires, and memories, even if they weren’t accessible anymore. But that didn’t mean they did not deserve a good death. 

Shiro helped them because he too had been a corpse, once. When he was in the air force, after crashes, captures, battles, and bullets, his time had finally come for him. His heart stopped not on the battlefield but in the operating theater, for eight minutes and forty seven seconds. Quite a while, his surgeon had told him. 

Although he had been asleep through the amputation of his arm, he could somehow feel the physical memory of his heart ceasing to beat. His surgeon told him it was all in his head, maybe a dream, or his imagination running wild, but Shiro could remember the feeling. His heart moving in his chest one moment, and stopping for a long while the next. It hurt like nothing he had ever felt before, even the pain that caused his arm to require amputation. It was like fire and ice, an aching feeling of death emanating from some hole in his chest, a feeling he could never forget even if he wasn’t sure he was really remembering in the first place. 

When he woke, and after he completed rehab, and was formally and honorably discharged from the military, he knew he needed a new path. In his previous career he had faced the mortality of himself, his friends, and even his enemies. He felt as if he had learned everything about death by causing it and being afraid of it. Then, he experienced it. He considered himself doubly-wise, and counted his blessings. So, off to mortuary school he went after leaving the VA hospital on wobbly, fawn-like legs. 

Nowadays he knew he was not so God-like. He was just a man who sometimes needed sleeping pills and put makeup on old dead guys. But he was happy. After the army, being simply happy was an accomplishment of its own. 

He was ready for quiet, happy monotony. 

So, day after day he got up, had his tea, pet his cat’s head, and went to Atlas. 

\---

Three days after the fire incident, Shiro was back at work in the prep room. The body on his table was that of a middle aged woman. She was skinny beyond all measure, sickly from cancer that had lingered in her body since childhood. She had fought bravely, her family insisted, but it was finally her time. The deli counter in heaven was calling her number and who were they to argue? With their mother in death’s grocery store, the children had provided a picture by which they remembered her, and Shiro was meant to turn her corpse into the picture. However, the picture was of a different woman. 

The woman in the picture was rather more round. Not large, healthy, maybe but nowhere near the tiny, frail bird that lay on his table. The family provided a remission-era picture, where she ran triathlons and considered career upgrades. The family wanted her to look like she did in the picture. This was a problem for Shiro. 

He insisted he would do his best, but he was still scared he would upset the tearful husband, or heartbroken children.

Shiro generally didn’t enjoy embalming bodies. Aside from the obvious risk of the gross-out factor, it could be tedious. It often felt pointless when the deceased was to be cremated shortly after, there were numerous environmental hazards, and formaldehyde caused cancer, to name a few. Shiro did not want cancer. He did not enjoy embalming bodies. 

Mrs. Birdie (really) lay on the table and looked up at him. Her eyes were very yellow, so he closed them softly. The left one sprung open again before he had time to grab eye caps. He placed the plastic disks gently over her deflated eyes and closed her eyelids, pressing ever so gently so the small plastic spikes would grab her skin and hold her eyes closed. 

He placed a similar device in her mouth to fill out her lips and gums, wired her jaw shut and stood back to take a look. 

She was looking much better already. She had gone from three-days-passed to freshly-deceased if he did say so himself. 

Shiro turned and faltered, struck by a flicker of light. There was no one else beside he and Mrs. Birdie in the room, or even the entire mortuary. His boss was still on leave from his hemorrhoid surgery. Shiro did not like knowing his boss had hemorrhoids, but he did, so that was that. 

“Mrs. Birdie, are you haunting me already? You have a husband,” Shiro said, turning back to his table. 

Shiro was not afraid of, nor did he believe in ghosts. But he was always kind to his deceased, just in case. 

Shiro adjusted the sheet covering Mrs. Birdie, placed there for someone’s modesty, but he wasn’t sure whose. The corpse was a corpse, so it did not have feelings. He was a live, so he did not have feelings for a corpse. Still, he averted his eyes as best he could and scooted his trocar over to her, apologized, and stabbed her in the abdomen repeatedly. Gently, he was sure. 

The trocar removed liquid from the body cavity of the corpse so as not to allow it to leak out in the coming days, before burial or cremation. Blood had already been removed from the veins of Mrs. Birdie, long since replaced with embalming fluid, but there were other areas of liquid in the body which Shiro needed to remove. It was brown and not always an even consistency, like a day-old smoothie. It was his least favorite part if he was honest with himself. 

As he punctured the area adjacent to Mrs. Birdie’s stomach, the light in the room flickered yet again. The trocar sputtered and dear God please don’t let it get body spew anywhere other than the drain. 

Shiro set everything down and stepped away from Mrs. Birdie, into the mortuary proper. He checked the electrical box and then the windows outside the prep room, seeing if there was a storm. Nothing seemed out of order. The news didn’t mention any issues at the electrical plants, either. 

Shiro crossed his fingers that it was simply the fluorescent lighting in the prep room and not him going crazy, having a stroke, or being haunted, those being the only other options, presumably. 

As he walked back from the large bay windows in the hallway, his attention was caught again, as the front door opened. The foyer brightened and a woman in a long black coat entered the foyer and looked around. He, too, left the hallway and stepped into the daylight and smiled at the woman before him. 

She was tall, and stressed-looking, though that part was quite normal for Shiro’s line of work. Her hair was a faded purple, like it had been dyed a month or so ago and then neglected. She had it pulled away from her face, young-looking save the slight smile lines around her frown. 

“Hi,” Shiro smiled, reaching to shake her hand. “I’m Takashi Shirogane, I’m the assistant director here. Can I help you?” 

The woman looked down at his hands which were still, awkwardly, in blue latex gloves. 

“Ah, sorry, I was just down in the - it doesn’t matter. How can I help?” He asked as he tossed his gloves in the trash by the welcome desk. 

The woman smiled faintly, bemused, and took her coat off to hold in her arms, as if she needed something to do with her hands. 

“I’m here to inquire about your service packages. I was hoping for a brochure, or something.” 

The woman was curt, and professional. People faced death in many ways. He often found that, perhaps ironically, men were far less prepared to deal with death than women. He supposed that as the head-of-households, women were trained to deal with familial stresses more than their male counterparts were. The wail of a bereaved mother was the most horrible sound in the world, but other than those moments of true grief, women put their best feet forward. Men would call women hysterical every other day of the year but when a family needed emotional maturity it was mom who succeeded. 

“Of course. We have many options available here, from direct cremation to full funeral and burial packages. My boss really believes in options, you know, since we meet people on their worst days.” 

The woman nodded. “I appreciate that. It’s not my worst day yet, though. It’s for my son. He’s not yet...shortly, we think,” the woman pursed her lips as she ended her sentence, like she was holding words in. 

“I understand. I’ll give you these,” he said as he offered the woman multiple leaflets on packages and pricing. “It’s always best to be prepared, though I wish you the best.” 

The woman fumbled with her jacket for a moment, setting it down on the desk so she could take all the paperwork Shiro had handed her. She tucked it into the already overstuffed pockets of the jacket before hurriedly putting it back on again. 

“Oh, what’s your name, ma’am? If I see an email or request from you I’ll get back to you right away.” 

She smiled as she pushed through the doors to the outside world. “Krolia Kogane. Thank you.” 

Shiro stood for a moment, in case she turned back in, before he went back to the prep room. He finished with Mrs. Birdie as quick as he could, as it was nearing the end of his shift, finally. She went back into the refrigerator from whence she came, and Shiro closed the doors and turned off the lights to the prep room. 

His closing routine was easy since he was the only person in the mortuary. The cremation machines had already been cooled and shut down, so he just needed to lock up and close all the doors to the counsel rooms, the chapel, the prep room, and finally the door that led to the foyer. 

As he entered the foyer, a glint of gold caught his eye. Something was laying on the welcome desk. He bent over to pick it up and metal clinked against his metal fingers. A golden locket. He examined it closely. There was a strange symbol on the front, one he did not recognize to be in any common language, nor a brand. With clumsy fingers he opened it only to find a picture of an infant and a tiny lock of dark hair. 

It must have come from the woman - Krolia Kogane - when she threw her coat on the table. The clasp looked broken, as if it had been pulled off in a hurry. He put the locket in his pocket, figuring that if she emailed or called back she could let her know. He felt very sad holding the locket, for he knew it must have been very important to her. Her son was dying and here was a memento of said son. Hopefully she called when they opened again in the morning. Or, maybe he could find her somehow. She had a unique enough name. 

Shiro turned away from the desk so he could proceed to get his own jacket from the manager’s office when he nearly jumped out of his own skin. A young man, with black hair and a scarred face sat on the couch, looking at him. 

“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.” 

How could he not have, though. Hadn’t he been looking at the couch when he walked in the foyer? Maybe he really was going crazy from the embalming fluid in Mrs. Birdie. 

“It’s okay,” the man said. His voice was raspy, like he hadn’t spoken in a few days. Despite that, and the cheek scar, he was quite handsome. Shiro blushed, chastising himself to remain professional. 

“We’re actually closing, so, unless it’s an emergency, we’d ask you come back tomorrow morning. I’d be happy to give you some pamphlets,” Shiro said, gesturing to the wall of Death Informational Material. 

“I’m not in a hurry, but...I think I’m lost,” the man said, looking chagrined. 

Shiro felt relieved - no angry or sad young man yelling at him for funerary services this evening. Just a bus trip, probably. 

“Oh, no worries! Where are you going? What’s your name?” Shiro smiled at the handsome stranger. Maybe they were going on the same bus together he wondered (and hoped).

“Um...I’m looking for my mom. I think she was just here. My name is Keith.” 

Shiro frowned. “The woman with the purple hair? She left, but I don’t know where she went. She said her son was dying...are you looking for the hospital?”

The man smiled, a little. The side of his face with the scar didn’t move as much, so he was a little crooked. Shiro found it quite charming. Maybe he needed a second cat if he was this lonely. 

“Well…,” the man hesitated. “I’m her only son. I don’t think I’m dying.” 

Shiro gets weird in the funerary industry a lot. There’s, like, setting Mr. Thompson on fire weird, and wanting to push the button on the cremation machine weird, and can you press my ashes into tattoo ink weird. Sometimes people came in on drugs, or drunk. Death was hard. He tried to understand that all people faced mortality differently. Not all people were reanimated corpses like he was. He couldn’t judge those people, yuppies who had been shielded from death their whole lives who broke down over words like “casket” and “memorial”. He couldn’t be phased by weird. 

But this was weird. 

“Uh...well...I guess I would try the hospital anyway. It’s about half a mile away…,” Shiro guessed. He was stumped. Where would a woman, believing her son was dying, go? She came to the mortuary, so would she try to be at her dying son’s bedside? 

The handsome stranger stood up. “Yeah, I’ll try there. What direction?” 

Shiro gave him quick directions - the hospital wasn’t hard to find. The handsome stranger nodded, thanked him, and as if he were made of the same sad miasma as the smoke that alerted Shiro to the burning of Mr. Thompson’s body, walked through the glass of the front doors without opening them. 

Shiro’s knees gave out from underneath him.


	2. First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro and Keith get to know each other, and make some decisions about what Keith's going to do.

Shiro’s mind lagged behind his body as he woke up cradled in his own bed and with his cat’s sandpaper tongue licking against his face. 

“Hn.”

“Mrow.”

Shiro opened his eyes and scratched Black’s ears before sighing. Her dark fur took up most of his field of vision, save for a bright eye looking down at him. When he sat up she moved to his lap, standing on her back legs and placing her front paws on his chest. 

“Do you believe in ghosts, Black?” His voice was rough with sleep, but he could hear the edge anyway - it was an odd feeling, hearing himself like it was a recording. 

Black stared at him, yellow eyes boring into his as if to silently implore nothing but, “tuna, please”. She rarely helped him with important questions. 

Shiro hauled himself out of bed, feeling stiff and heavy. Sometimes he stayed up when Black woke him up for breakfast; sometimes he slept for the extra hour before his real alarm went off at 7. Today, he knew he would never fall back asleep, not with images of a ghost in the mortuary rolling through his head like a train through a car on the tracks. 

The floor under his feet was cold, jolting him back to the present for a second, and he shivered a bit as he walked to the kitchen to give Black her breakfast, but when he got there, he was surprised to see a figure in the kitchen already. 

“You’re up early, Matt,” he said while opening the noxious-smelling wet foot Black insisted on. 

“I told you, my name is Keith.” 

Shiro’s head snapped up and he focused on the figure in the kitchen. It was, in fact, Keith.

“How did you get in my house?” Shiro half-yelled. Part of him didn’t want to wake Matt up, and the other half was already dialing 9-1-1. He was acting on instinct, not logic, and though Keith was certainly much smaller than him, even without the prosthetic, he was still breaking and entering. And Shiro knew never to underestimate an adversary. 

Keith shrugged. “I don’t know. I keep trying to leave but no matter how far I walk I just end up back here.” 

Shiro stepped back away from Keith to asses the situation, hoping it would calm his heart which felt like it was going to burst from his chest Alien-style. 

Keith was wearing the same clothes he had been in the foyer of the mortuary, so it was clear he hadn’t gone home. His shirt and pants were black, but his leather jacket was a deep red. He had clunky motorcycle boots on. Shiro was sure Keith was getting dirt everywhere, and he was mad about it. Plus the breaking and entering.

The light, though, from the window behind Keith seemed to go right through his skin. Shiro was sure he could see the outline of Keith’s skull just under his face, as if there was an afterimage projecting onto his head. 

Shiro backed up even farther, bumping into the wall behind him as he stared at Keith, who stood up from the seat he had stolen. 

Keith moved forward, stepping over to Shiro. The kitchen was small enough that Keith crowded into Shiro’s space with only a few steps of his heavy moto boots - which made no sound against the linoleum floor. Shiro was unable to look anywhere but Keith, and his mind was racing through all of his options. He could try to knock Keith out cold, he could pick him up and carry him, he could try and make it back to his room where he stored a small handgun in his closet. 

Before Shiro could move, Keith reached his hand out to Shiro’s arm. But where their skin should have met, instead, Keith blended into Shiro’s body, passing through him like smoke. Keith almost seemed more surprised than Shiro did. 

“Get out of my house! What the fuck is wrong with you? Go get your mom.” Shiro moved to haul Keith out of his kitchen, reaching to grab his upper arm, only to see his hand pass through his bicep. His arm was engulfed in the same ice and fire feeling he could remember in his chest the moment his heart stopped. 

“What the fuck. What the fuck? What the fuck!” 

He felt the residue of death cling to his arm even after he pulled it back, tingling like it had fallen asleep. He was reminded, suddenly, of the battlefield, the rain of fire as planes came down around him, as the Earth moved with every shot of a gun. Shiro held his breath as if it would save him from the memories flooding his head. 

Keith, though, had no reaction, almost as if he was taunting Shiro’s PTSD-addled brain. His face was carefully neutral, even as he spoke. 

“Why the hell am I haunting you of all people? Why not my mom?” 

“You’re not haunting me at all! Ghosts aren’t real.”

“Then what am I?” 

Shiro wiggled free of Keith’s gaze and stepped around him, falling down in the same chair Keith had commandeered in the corner of his apartment’s tiny kitchen. He put his head down on the cool laminate and breathed in and out, consciously and forcibly slow. He was in control, he reminded himself. His traumas were in the past and they could not hurt him anymore. He had rescue medication if he needed it. 

“I’m talkin’ to you, buddy,” Keith’s rasp came from somewhere above him. 

Shiro groaned. This was so, so not good. He pushed away from the card table, and stumbled into his bathroom. He locked the door behind him, as if his hallucination would be stopped by a deadbolt, and sat on the cool edge of the tub with his head between his knees. Typically, when he had “bad brain” as Matt called it his symptoms didn’t present like this. He wasn’t used to the visions of boys-long-passed or the very real feeling pain in his arm when he and Keith had touched.

Shiro consciously slowed his breathing again and spat into the tub drain. He stood and stepped over to the medicine cabinet where he rifled through all of the orange bottles before he found his strongest anti-anxiety meds. His pills and Matts were all mixed up, which struck him as dangerous, but he never did anything about it. Maybe today was the day to organize the cabinet, considering he was fully off his rocker. 

 He threw his pill back with a handful of cool tap water. He looked at his own face and saw a mirror of Keith’s own - gaunt, pale, pained. Dr. Charlie was going to have a field day with him when they met again next Thursday - or maybe Shiro would walk to his office today and beg to be seen. 

_ “You can always go to your doctor. Just breathe,”  _ he reminded himself, chanting it like a spell. 

The tile in the bathroom was cool and just soothing enough to ground him in reality. His chest shuddered as he breathed, but slowly, painfully, he was able to calm himself down. His mouth went from bitter to just dry, but after gulping down handfuls of water he was able to step out of the bathroom determined to brew his hot black tea and have breakfast before showering, hoping that going about his normal routine might free him from Keith. 

What he saw, instead, made his heart run cold in his chest. 

Black was staring at Keith, fur raised, ears flat, and teeth bared. She could clearly see - or sense him, at least. Shiro could hear the low yowl coming from her throat. It was the same noise she made when Matt’s sibling brought their dog over. 

“Yo, like, your cat…?” Keith asked, looking unsure of himself. 

Shiro’s heart was hammering in his chest still with no chance of stopping. 

“You’re an actual fucking ghost.” 

Shiro rarely swore but it was swearing time. Keith was a ghost and he was in Shiro’s apartment. 

“I need to go to work,” Shiro concluded. His emergency pill was doing it’s job, keeping his anxiety quiet under a blanket of cotton and fog. His mouth was dry again and he felt lightheaded but the military had beat many qualities into him, one of which being “go to work” as the answer to nearly any problem a reasonable person would encounter. 

“Yeah? That’s what you’re gonna do?” Keith looked offended. 

Shiro turned on his heel, not answering, dizzy like the room was spinning but he was standing still, and marched back into his bedroom to grab his work clothes. 

He wore dark gray, generally, not out of respect for the dead or a gothic style persuasion, but because going near the crematory machine usually ended with getting a fine layer of soot and ash on his clothing. Shiro grabbed his dark gray slacks out of his dresser (he owned five of the same pairs. Why mess with what worked?) and a dark gray shirt from his closet (he owned seven of slightly-different-patterned ones for variety). He grabbed socks and underwear and an undershirt. He furrowed his brow as he concentrated on living his aggressively normal life even if he was being haunted. 

Shiro walked past Keith to go back into his bathroom. During his shower he managed to get his heart slowed down (for the nth time) and his thoughts in a more-or-less straight line. He had a ghost waiting patiently outside his bathroom door. The ghost was kinda hot. Life was normal. This was fine. 

When he emerged, hair combed more or less into place and teeth brushed, he stared Keith down. They stood in mutual silence, looking at one another, deer in the headlights.

“You’re wearing the same outfit as yesterday,” Keith quipped. 

“So are you,” Shiro said as he walked to the door of his apartment. He grabbed his jacket and was out the door in a flash, half running away from his own personal haunted mansion. By the time he had clomped down the cement stairs and was out in the parking lot, he realized he had a shadow. 

‘Why are you following me?”

“What else am I gonna do?”

Shiro shrugged, not really sure of any better answer. He slammed his car door behind him and watched Keith melt through the metal to sit in the passenger side seat. 

Keith tilted his head to the side as Shiro watched him, mildly horrified. “What, I’m not going in the back. You’re not a taxi.”

Shiro gave an awkward laugh and mentally thanked his meds for holding his hand through this experience. 

Keith wiggled in his spot in the passenger side seat and Shiro briefly wondered why Keith was able to slip through some objects but stayed place against others. Why was Keith not sinking slowly to the road? The seat wasn’t squished like Keith had any weight, but it was still supporting him nonetheless. 

“I can see myself in the mirror. I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen,” he mused, running his fingers through his hair. 

“I think that’s vampires.” 

“Oh, word.” 

Shiro tried to keep his eyes on the road but he couldn’t stop taking glances at Keith. Keith looked solid, mostly opaque, and altogether normal. If it were any other day they would just look like two friends going to work together. There was no visible aura, no smell of hellfire, nothing that might indicate Keith was “differently-alive” save for the fact that Shiro could stick his hand through Keith’s leg if he so wished. 

The more he thought about it the more his heart picked up again and the more his palms sweat against the steering wheel. He choked his thoughts down and away like he used to when he was enlisted, the feeling of tightness in his throat almost familiar enough to be comforting. 

As he pulled into the parking lot of Atlas, Shiro closed his eyes and took a deep breath. With his eyes closed, he tried to focus on his other senses to ground himself. He could smell the leather of his car interior, he could sense the hunger in his breakfastless belly, and he could hear the wind outside his car. He breathed in and out, slowly, like he had been just fine all morning. He was fine. 

When he opened his eyes Keith was looking at him. 

“Am I really that scary, Shiro?” He looked embarrassed, and Shiro’s stomach dropped out of him when he realized what he was doing. 

Jokes aside, Keith was feeling things and experiencing the same world as Shiro. He would guess it was likely not a nice feeling to be dead and watch your host was have a morning-commute-long panic attack over it. Shiro blushed as he gazed back at Keith. 

“I’m sorry. It’s…,” he wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. What was it, really? 

Keith turned back to look out the window, showing the back of his head to Shiro. His hair was gently wavy, like it would be curly if he took care of it better or stopped sleeping on it wet. 

“It’s fine. If I could leave I would,” Keith said, still facing the window. 

The sun shone towards them, causing a reflection in the glass to shimmer around where Keith was looking, like heat waves coming off pavement in the Summer. What a sight to behold, Shiro realized.

He squared his shoulders and got out of his car, jogging around to open Keith’s door even though he knew perfectly well Keith could slide through the metal and plastic and glass himself, incorporeal. 

Keith stayed quiet as he got out of the car. He lifted himself like one would after a long day of work and Shiro wondered if Keith felt physical pain, or soreness, or if he could feel his own intangibility. Maybe that, too, ached in some way. Phantom limb syndrome of the whole body. Shiro shuddered to himself, relating a little bit too much. 

They walked through the parking lot and to Atlas, where once again Shiro opened the door for Keith. 

As they walked Shiro became more and more aware of how only one set of steps echoed in the empty mortuary, yet he knew he was not alone. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked up for the first time since meeting Keith. Perhaps it was the aura of death the mortuary itself emanated, or maybe it was his body adjusting to being aware of three-hundred and sixty degrees, not just his field of vision. He was generally comfortable at his job, never once worrying about ghosts, but now he wondered if he would one day open the door to Atlas and see the lot of them. 

_ Corpse Party!  _

In the mornings, generally, Shiro would ignite the cremation machines, letting them warm up as he prepared other bodies or viewings. He would do this in a pleasant silence, rarely even listening to music. Even when his boss was in the mortuary the tasks were split enough that they would both take care of one half of all things, so as to keep them busy enough that there was no downtime. 

He enjoyed the solitude of it - knowing there was someone nearby but not being bothered by them. 

Now, with Keith, he felt self conscious as he worked, knowing someone was watching. The eyes of a stranger on him made him extra careful as he pulled his first body from the freezer. He felt a bit like he was a novice acting in front of an expert - an ameteur painter next to Michelangelo, like Keith knew all of the aspects of being dead jus because he had started experiencing it. 

“So, like, what are you doing?” 

Keith’s voice broke Shiro out of his reverie. 

“Oh, uh, Mrs. Libitina is to be cremated. I’m just giving her a wash beforehand.”

Keith, perched on a metal stool by the gurney, put his chin in his hands. 

“Why?” 

“What do you mean, ‘why’?” Shiro asked as he wiped a damp cloth down Mrs. Libitina’s arm. She was an elderly woman, older than almost anyone else Shiro had ever met. The nursing home had said she was “probably one-hundred and nine”. Her advanced dementia had made it difficult to verify her identity. She had neither family nor friends, and had died alone in her nursing bed. Shiro felt very sad for her, but tried to focus not on her loneliness but instead on her being free of pain. 

“Technically so we don’t clog the retort - er, the cremation machine. But also...she died alone. I don’t know when the last time she was cared for.” 

Keith watched without asking questions for a while after that. He watched as Shiro cleaned Mrs. Libitina, as he placed her in the specialized cardboard casket, and as he pushed the button that would render her bones to dust. Shiro did the whole thing silently, preferring to stand as an observer for those that were alone. He could not provide any service to her, but he could do this. 

When the process was over Shiro swept her remains into the cremulator, and then into the small plastic urn the State had paid for. 

Leaving Keith behind for a moment, Shiro placed the urn in their storage room, amongst all of the other unclaimed urns. He hoped she would find community with other indigent dead, especially before they were placed in the cemetery of choice for the State, all together, in a mass grave. 

When he turned to leave the room he started, having turned right into Keith. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, curious as ever. 

“We store unclaimed ashes here.” 

Keith paused before speaking again. “Do you think that will happen to my body?” 

His face, so carefully neutral all morning, was finally showing some emotion. His frown pulled at his skin, oh-so-slightly translucent. Shiro was sure he might see Keith’s teeth if he stared at his mouth any longer, but that might have been better than looking at his eyes, sad and scared behind his bangs. 

“No, I don’t,” he said, being sure to make his voice as steady and casual as possible. “Once I’m done with my day, we’re going to go to the hospital and find your mom. She said you weren’t dead yet, anyway.” 

Keith said nothing, but nodded, and followed Shiro back down into the depths of the mortuary. 

\--

After work, Keith and Shiro stepped into the dim light of the evening. Under the moon Keith appeared his most opaque, solid next to Shiro enough for him to forget for a moment that Keith was, in fact, a ghost. 

As he slid into the car he looked pensive, his frown tugging at his lips again. “So I’ve been thinking.” 

“Uh oh,” Shiro said, smiling to himself. 

He and Keith had built a small report, joking with each other through the day. Though he certainly still preferred to work in silence, things weren’t so bad with Keith around so long as he wasn’t floating through walls. 

“You’re going to have to be my husband.”

Shiro slammed on the breaks of his car even though they weren’t moving yet. 

Keith continued, “It’s a hospital - they won’t let just anyone in, right? It’s better if you pretend to be married to me or something. Say you were overseas and that’s why you couldn’t come right away.” 

“Uh.” 

“I’m just saying.” 

Shiro sat back into his seat for a moment, wondering if he could find the flaw in Keith’s plan. He did - they would not be able to provide any proof of marriage if asked, but he also could not think of a better plan. 

So, he turned the wheel of his car and drove the opposite way, back home. 

\--

Shiro stepped into his apartment and was bombarded by a cloud of smoke. He waved his hand in front of his face and coughed, smelling the distinctive scent of Matt’s cooking. Burnt veggies from their ancient oven, overdone steak on the electric range, and spilled red wine from where he had definitely smashed a bottle on accident. 

Matt was the smartest person Shiro had ever met, but he was also an unrepentant dumbass. 

“You’re going to set the smoke alarm off!” Shiro hollered as he waded through the smoke to his room. 

“Nuh-uh, I took the batteries out.” Matt’s voice came from the kitchen, sing-song like they were in on the joke together. 

Shiro dug through his closet as he yelled back, “We’re never getting our security deposit back!” 

Matt did not answer which, in and of itself, was an answer. 

Shiro gestured for Keith to turn around as he changed into the chosen Hospital Crime outfit. He pulled his army t-shirt over his head, stuffed his legs into camo pants, and dug his boots out of the back of his wardrobe. His dog tags, hanging on the inside of the closet door went around his neck, tinkling softly together. In the mirror he looked like an old photograph of himself, save for the change in hair color. Maybe his face had more lines, too, but he wasn’t counting those. 

Softly, he spoke to Keith. “What do you think?” 

Keith turned and looked at him, raking his eyes up and down over his body. “Wow. You look like a real soldier.” 

“I was a real soldier,” Shiro retorted, oddly defensive. 

Keith didn’t reply, instead moving through the wall of the apartment from Shiro’s bedroom to the living room. Shiro followed him, stepping out of his room as quietly as he could. But no matter how softly he stepped his boots were loud and clunky against the hardwood floor, echoing as he walked. Shiro bolted to the door, not wanting to get caught by his roommate in such a startling outfit change. 

Matt poked his head out of the kitchen anyway, and his eyes went wide. 

“Uh.”

“I’m going hiking,” Shiro supplied, a little too loud and a little too fast. 

“It’s dark outside,” Matt said, stepping into the living room with his arms crossed, spatula sticking out of one hand. He leaned on one leg as he usually did when he was without his cane - a necessity because of the knee injury Shiro had given him on purpose all those years ago. 

Shiro scratched the back of his neck, hoping to be casual. ‘Yeah, it’s night hiking. I, uh, have a date? I have to go.” 

Before Matt could respond Shiro ran out the door, grabbing his jacket behind him. He knew Matt didn’t believe him but he couldn’t worry about that quite yet. He had one more stop to make. 

In the car, Shiro looked at Keith, who was grinning at him like a kid who had gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but was definitely not afraid of getting in trouble. His smile was big - faltering only on the side of his face with the scar - but still handsome. It suited him in a certain way, like he was showing Shiro a part of himself he rarely showed anyone. 

“So,” Shiro started, gunning his car engine. “Silver or gold?”

“Silver, definitely.” 

Shiro pulled them out onto the road and drove as fast as he could down to the department store that made up most of the business in their small, fadig Nevada town. It was open late because it was the only place anyone wanted to go unless they were leaving town. Inside it was a small jewelry counter where Shiro fit a slim, silver wedding band around his left ring finger. 

Keith hummed. “Looks nice, but make sure you take the sticker off of it,” he said with a smile. 

Shiro, unable to answer in front of the counter girl, already confused as to why he was buying only one wedding band, just smiled and paid for it. 

Back in the car, Shiro looked over at Keith. “Ready to find your mom?” 

“Please.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!! Sorry it's been a hundred years. Things happen. I actually started writing another series that has about five chapters up, but I always wanted to finish this, so here's chappie two. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! I like trying my hand at a more "humorous" story. I'm not sure if it's actually funny or not, but it's a bit more lively than I usually write. Since it's about a mortuary I didn't want it to be really morbid after all. 
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think. 
> 
> And! I'm on twitter @softiewrites 
> 
> <3


	3. The Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Shiro find Keith's body, but it doesn't answer many questions.

Shiro hadn’t been in a hospital for a long time, so walking under the fluorescent lights of Nevada General made his skin itch. The echoing of his own footsteps, the nurses’ chatter, the dinging of elevators - all of it brought back those memories of being stuck in rehab, all the pain of losing his arm compounded by the pain of losing his career. It had been so overwhelming that there were days he wasn’t sure he wanted to wake up in the morning, and that anxiety was creeping back up his throat again. A terrible tightness squeezed his body, and he couldn’t shake it off. 

 Instinctively, he held his prosthetic, comforting himself. 

“You okay?” Keith asked, looking up at Shiro. His face was pinched with concern, far more than anyone had the right to have over someone they had only known for twenty-four hours. His eyes followed Shiro’s face, looking for a response so earnestly that Shiro blushed. 

“Been a while,” he mumbled and turned away. 

They walked down the halls towards where Keith felt, as he put it “most strongly about things”. Shiro walked with purpose, avoiding any lingering glances from staff. He needed to project confidence to feel it, and so he did his damndest for Keith’s sake. Still, occasionally nurses glanced at them - or, rather, just at Shiro - but no one asked them if they needed help. Their eyes slid from Shiro’s face to his army t-shirt to his prosthetic, and Shiro knew they were drawing their own conclusions about why he might be wandering the halls in the evening after most other guests and visitors had gone home.  

Shiro shrugged their looks off as Keith lead them deep into the belly of the hospital, following not much more than broken thoughts and a feeling. They passed the children’s ward, and the geriatric ward, maternity, outpatient services, all of it blending together after searching til they memorized the map. Their loops started to overlap, Shiro recognizing the generic artwork on the walls as they went up and down the elevators and stairs, searching for the source of Keith’s “feelings”. 

As they walked, Shiro watched Keith as he moved. He reached for doors on instinct, but then went through them. He dragged his feet, making the edges of his boots clip into the floor like bad video game animation. He wondered if Keith did that when he was inside his body, scuffing his boots all over the floor. 

Shiro smiled to himself, bemused despite his anxiety, when Keith huffed a sigh and put his hands on his hips, except his hands blended with his clothing. 

“I don’t know where I am.” He looked annoyed as he spoke, but Shiro didn’t mind their adventure all that much. Despite his misgivings about hospitals - especially the one he had done so much rehab in so long ago - he felt a pleasant something being by Keith’s side. Like the start of a fire, or a sunbeam through a window. It was  _ something _ he couldn’t place. 

Shiro didn’t answer, not wanting to make anyone look at him, but turned on his heel and marched back to the nurses’ station they had passed thrice already. 

The nurse sitting at the desk glanced up at him through her turquoise reading glasses, the little beaded chain holding them around her neck jiggling as she moved. 

“Finally asking for help, baby?” Her voice was rough like she had smoked a thousand cigarettes, her hair was blonde and unevenly cropped short to her head like she had just gotten tired of it one day, and her lipstick was smudged on her teeth. Shiro liked her immensely. 

Shiro cleared his throat, suddenly a lot more nervous than he had been a minute ago. “I need to find Keith Kogane’s bed. I was told he was here,” Shiro said, hoping he projected the cool nonchalonce of someone who belonged, but he knew he likely gave himself away through his body language the same way a little kid would when trying - and failing - to lie to their mom. 

The nurse looked him over. “Name?” 

Shiro pulled his ID from his wallet and handed it to the nurse, pained smile on his face. “Takashi Shirogane. I’m, uh, his husband. So I need to see him. It’s been...a year?” 

The nurse’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “His mother didn’t say anythin’ about that.” 

Shiro swallowed, frozen. “Uh, well -,” he faltered, his voice failing him as he searched for the correct excuse to give. Belatedly, he realized they should have thought of a good excuse for what was quite an obvious problem in their tale.

Keith spoke up, however, saving him. “She didn’t approve.” 

Shiro repeated the line a little too fast, surely giving himself away as a person in dire need of psychiatric help. 

“She didn’t approve. And I was overseas, you see,” he rushed, gesturing to his shirt for effect. Just the lonely soldier, missing his injured husband, nothing more to see here. 

The nurse squinted at Shiro for a long time, looking between him and his ID. 

Shiro pointed to his ring, suddenly conscious of the receipt in his back pocket, a drop of sweat dripping down his neck. 

The nurse sighed, her eyeglass chain jiggling again. “Thirty minutes, baby. It’s after visitin’ hours.” She pulled out a sign-in sheet, made Shiro leave his ID, and pointed him to a room at the very end of the hallway, her red acrylic nail a beacon of hope. 

Shiro rushed on, boots thudding as he walked. Keith followed along silent as ever. 

The door at the end of the hallway, bathed gently in the faded light of the moon, was nondescript save for a small sign posted up. 

_                          Kogane: No known allergies. _

Shiro pushed the door open and held it for Keith, who drifted through the wood behind him despite the opening. Shiro’s eyes went to the body on the bed of the room immediately, but he wasn’t the first to reach it. Keith hovered over himself, looking down at his own face. The sight was a strange one - if Shiro didn’t know any better he would assume the two were twins, if not for the fact that Keith was standing _ in  _ the middle of the bed so as to get a closer look. 

Shiro moved to stand beside Keith, and looked down, too. 

The Keith in the bed looked the same as the Keith he knew, save for the tube in his mouth and the line running up his nose and into his stomach - Shiro could remember what that line felt like even years after. He was pale and skinny, more so than most. Shiro wondered if that was an effect of being in the hospital or if it was what Keith normally looked like. His ghost was certainly scrawny enough for it to be a possibility. 

Seeing his body was a shock, not just because of how sickly Keith looked. For the first time Shiro had undeniable proof that he wasn’t crazy and that he really was interacting with a spirit. His stomach turned sour as he contemplated all the implications of Keith’s existence. Was there an afterlife? A heaven? Would Keith ever be able to find rest on Earth or would he have to live here forever? Sadness filled Shiro. He wasn’t going to be able to help with those things. 

“I don’t remember why...,” Keith said as he looked down at himself, bringing Shiro back to the present. 

“What’s the last thing you can think of?” Shiro fell back into a chair next to the bed, knowing they were going to be in the room for a while.

Keith hummed, contemplating. “I remember...my childhood. College. My last birthday, October twenty-third. My mom got me, um...school stuff I think. I turned twenty-two.” 

Shiro leaned back in his chair, thinking. “When I was injured I couldn’t remember much, either. I think it’s normal to have some amnesia. Let’s look at your chart.” 

He got out of his chair and pulled the cool metal clipboard from its holder at the foot of Keith’s bed. There were only two papers on it, and some of the lines and boxes weren’t filled out yet, though it had a lot of notations in the margins - abbreviations, question marks, and one very bold “ask mother” circled three times. Shiro read through the information quickly, the clipboard feeling heavy in his hands. 

Keith turned, still standing in the bed, and watched Shiro read, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Luckily, the papers on the clipboard, for their brevity, did give Shiro some information to work with, so he didn’t have to be stared at for too long.

“Says you were admitted about two weeks ago, on October twenty-fourth. Day after your birthday. Exam showed smoke in your lungs and minor injuries - a broken wrist, some bruises. So...cause unknown.” 

“I don’t smoke,” Keith said, perfuctually. 

Shiro shrugged. “A fire, maybe?” 

Keith shrugged again, clearly not able to answer any detailed questions, so Shiro tried a different approach. “How do you feel?” 

Keith closed his eyes and paused before answering. “It feels like my entire body has gone to sleep. Or maybe like a full-body anesthetic. I’m hungry, I guess.” His tone was less than hopeful, as if he knew none of that information would be particularly helpful. Still, Shiro filed the information away for any future use it might have. 

Shiro responded, trying to sound excited. “Can you, you know...get back in?” he asked, knowing just how dumb he sounded, but figuring it didn’t hurt to try.

Keith reached out to touch his arm but just passed through it the same way he did Shiro or the door to his hospital room. His hand went through his own skin like a pebble in water, sunk all the way through with no effort at all. He stood, then, just looking at himself. 

Shiro stood and stepped in as close as he could, wanting nothing more than to put his hand on Keith’s shoulder. 

“Maybe...if we figure out how you got here, we can figure out how to get you back in.” 

Keith hummed and pulled his legs up from where they were standing inside the bed and somehow managed to get himself  _ onto _ the bed, sitting next to his body as close as he could. Shiro wasn’t quite sure, still, how Keith decided he was going to go wherever it was he went, but he also wasn’t quite sure Keith knew either, so there was no point in asking. 

They sat in silence for a while. There was no noise save for the muffled honking from cars outside in the parking lot and the road nearby. Shiro could hear the occasional pair of footsteps coming towards them but they always stopped short of the room they were in, leaving them undisturbed. What resulted was a kind of muted peace, just the two of them thinking to themselves. Keith, of course, made no noise except for when he spoke, but Shiro made extra care not to fidget and disturb the room. 

Shiro wasn’t sure how many times in one day he would be reminded of his own time in the hospital, but once again he thought back to his injury. Being sick, or broken in some way, made people react differently. Some people were fighters, some hid their pain. Shiro tried to do both, to comfort himself by comforting those around him, by telling them he was fine and nothing hurt. So, he was almost jealous of the ease with which Keith displayed his discomfort even in silence. He frowned, and tried to move around and into his own body. Shiro watched as Keith cradled his own face, a bit like he was going to kiss himself. He didn’t have to ask to know what Keith was feeling - it was written all over his expression. 

Shiro watched, waiting for Keith to break the silence, but when he did it wasn’t what Shiro was expecting. 

“She would approve, by the way.” 

“That’s good,” Shiro spoke softly, matching Keith’s energy. 

“My mom is the best mom in the universe. I was raised by my pop but when I met my mom a few years ago it felt like coming home, you know. She was in the army and got imprisoned. But we found each other eventually.” 

Shiro leaned forward. “That’s -”

“It’s just, like, ironic I guess. We only got to know each other for a few years and now I might die, and she’ll be alone again. Except for her boyfriend she doesn’t have any family.” 

Shiro didn’t try to participate in the conversation any longer, just nodding and humming as Keith told him about himself. He didn’t need to pull when the floodgates had opened. Shiro listened as he learned where Keith was born, how he loved his pop and visited his grave a lot, how the homes he grew up in were largely horrible but occasionally nice, how he wanted to be an artist, or maybe an astronaut. He hadn’t decided yet. 

Keith was a thing of beauty to Shiro. A lightning strike to a tree causing a burst of sparks - or maybe a rainbow after a storm. The warmth he felt in his chest was familiar to him now, and he allowed himself a moment to bathe in Keith’s energy before reminding himself - ashamedly - that what he was doing was inappropriate and, frankly, unrealistic. 

But still, Shiro didn’t feel the ache in his shoulder til long after Keith was done talking about himself. He had become enraptured, dull to everything except Keith’s scratchy voice. Keith wasn’t sure if God was real but he did think the Universe knew all the answers. He didn’t like to date but thought there was someone for everyone. He would have joined the army but he didn’t like authority. 

“What do you think your mom is doing right now?” Shiro asked when they fell into silence again. Talking seemed to keep Keith’s energy up so Shiro didn’t want the conversation to lag again. 

“Mmm...She’s mission-driven. Probably sitting on her couch researching comas or something. Or maybe she’s out on a date with her boyfriend,” he said, rolling his eyes. 

Shiro was surprised at the quip - Keith had just finished speaking highly of his mother. “I don’t think so. When she came into Atlas she seemed heartbroken. She couldn’t even say the word ‘funeral.’” 

Keith shrugged. His face was a usual neutral mask but Shiro had quickly learned through the day that his mask hid some big emotions. It had been a long day already - if the pain in his back and his arm was any judge - and he didn’t want to make it longer, so he didn’t ask. His feelings about his mom’s boyfriend might be a conversation for another day, especially if Keith wasn’t offering, anyway. 

Shiro started to stretch, wondering how to best pry Keith away from his own body, when there was a knock at the door. The same nurse from the desk stood in the doorway, with her arms crossed. Her smeared lipstick made her frown somehow more intense. 

Shiro smiled at her, hoping to look chagrined. “Times up?”

“Way up, baby. Come back tomorrow.” She turned and left him behind, her sneakers squeaking as she left. 

Keith appeared at Shiro’s side, silent as ever. “I guess we can go.” 

\---

Matthew Holt’s hobbies included but were not limited to video games, coding, hanging with his sibling, and beating the ever-living shit out of Shiro with his cane. When given any opportunity he thoroughly enjoyed making fun of his best friend, and Shiro knew that, so he braced himself as he opened the apartment door. 

“A DATE?” Matt yelled, immediately hobbling over to the front door and pressing himself into Shiro’s space. 

“Well-” Shiro started, throwing his hands up to defend himself physically and emotionally. Keith covered his mouth as he laughed, though Matt didn’t react to his voice anyway. 

“WHO?” 

Shiro ducked around Matt and ran into the kitchen, hoping to avoid more whacks from the dreaded “cane of [whatever adjective Matt needs at the time]”. He threw the kettle on the burner and cranked it, aching for some tea as Matt shuffled around in the living room. Keith waited in the corner of the room, watching the scene they were making. 

“My boy is dating again and can’t even tell me anything about it. Don’t you know I need to live vicariously through you?” 

Shiro pulled his favorite mug from their cupboard - a large black thing with a small chip in the rim - and dropped a tea bag into it as he waited for the kettle to whistle. Black hopped up onto the counter and nuzzled Shiro’s hand, her soft fur sliding against his skin. He scratched her ears and yelled back to Matt, 

“It’s private. I don’t need to get your hopes up before he dumps me.” 

Matt stood in the doorway about to retort, when Keith breezed through him, making him shudder. 

“Ooh, cold - all I’m saying is-,”

Keith leaned on the stove to continue watching and Shiro’s eyes were drawn to him before he could answer Matt. 

“What are you looking at?” 

Shiro’s head snapped back to Matt. “Nothing. I just don’t want to talk about it right now. Maybe in the morning.” 

Matt huffed his displeasure but dropped the topic, letting Shiro drink his tea in peace. 

Keith stayed behind, turning his head to look at Shiro. He didn’t say anything but his eyes asked all the questions in the world. Shiro shrugged, unable to speak out loud for fear that Matt might hear, and instead sat at his kitchen table and finished his tea. The cup warmed his hands and brought a smile to his lips, which he tried to hide by drinking, but he knew Keith caught him anyway. 

They sat for a while in silence again, enjoying each other’s company. The pale moonlight filtered through the window and bathed Keith in a glow that should have been eerie, but Shiro found it peaceful. He smiled again. 

Eventually, after Shiro ate a small dinner, they made their way to Shiro’s room. With the door closed Shiro was able to let out a whisper, 

“Do you need to sleep?”

Keith thought to himself for a moment. “I don’t think so.”

“You said you were hungry earlier, so I wasn’t sure about sleep…”

Keith remained quiet but turned to face the wall unprompted, allowing Shiro to get dressed for sleep. He changed quickly, not wanting to make Keith feel awkward. He paused, though, when it came time to remove his prosthetic. No one except Matt had ever seen it off. He’d had no bedfellows in a very long time. 

Keith peeked an eye over one shoulder and, seeing the coast was clear, turned to face Shiro fully. 

“You saw me in a hospital bed. Just take it off so you can sleep.” 

And so he did, a hot blush on his face. Taking the arm off was a bit of a chore - it was built to be a tight, custom fit for a reason. But he detached the straps and pulled the damned thing off before removing the soft silicone guard that went around his stump. 

He rubbed at it for a moment, encouraging his blood to flow a little better again. 

“Does it hurt?” Keith asked, softly. 

“Sometimes,” Shiro replied. He supposed he shouldn’t be squeamish answering questions, not when he had been doing so for years. But part of him wondered if Keith would find him unattractive, or repulsive in some way. He had vivid memories of small children crying when they realized what it meant to be an amputee, and though he doubted Keith would be cruel to him, he still wondered what he was really thinking. 

“When I get my body back I’ll pay for you to get a massage, then.” 

Keith sat down in the small desk chair, one leg pulled up so his boot rested against his other thigh. He looked casual and certain of himself, like he belonged there. 

“Thanks,” Shiro said, laying down. 

He fell asleep with Keith watching him, one hand supporting his chin as he stared. But Shiro stopped feeling self conscious as the minutes ticked on, and instead drifted off feeling better than he had in years. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! More to come soon, of course. How do you think Shiro's going to get Keith back into his body? Will Shiro tell Matt about his predicament???
> 
> Come yell with me on twit @softiewrites


	4. Allura's Psychic Boutique

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro and Keith get one step away from having their tea leaves read.

When Shiro awoke the first thing he noticed was the chill in his room. With his eyes still closed he pulled his blankets closer to his body, trying to make a cocoon of warmth to shield him from the brisk air in the apartment. Did Matt leave a window open? No, it was too quiet for that - the sounds of the streets were still blocked out behind Shiro’s door, and the curtains that protected him from the morning sunlight. 

From his improvised sleeping bag, he cracked one eye open and glanced at his digital clock, sad to see that the time was only about ten minutes before he was supposed to get up. So much for sleeping in. 

With and internal sigh, he rolled over onto his back and glanced up at the ceiling, preparing himself for the day emotionally before sitting up. He saw that Keith was right where he left him, perched in his desk chair, his legs pulled up so his head was resting on his knees, his cheek squished under his own ghostly weight. 

Keith was looking at him, and so he looked back. Keith’s hair was mussed, like he had played with it in the night. His slow blinks brought attention to the faint purple bags under his eyes, even when his face scrunched with a yawn. 

“Sleep well?” Keith asked, his hand covering his mouth and his words stretching out as he breathed in. 

Shiro stretched, lifting his arm and his stump as far above his head as he could. 

“I suppose. It’s cold in here, though.” 

Keith hummed before stretching out himself. “Can’t tell.” 

Keith watched as Shiro pulled clothes out of his closet with an odd expression on his face. His mouth was pulled down into a small frown, barely noticeable without scrutiny, but his eyes were bright and clear, though he tracked Shiro’s movements. Shiro felt his hair stand on end but after spending all of yesterday with Keith by his side he was used to the feeling - the prickling sensation on the back of his neck was almost familiar. He leaned into it, knowing that for the sake of their friendship he needed to become numb to it. 

They made their way through the apartment together, Keith trailing behind Shiro, phasing through objects at his own leisure. Black spit and hissed at Keith from her perch on the window where she liked to watch birds and squirrels, but he smiled at her, friendly. 

Shiro knew it was far too early for Matt to be awake, but still he spoke to Keith in a hushed tone. 

“At least she’s not surprised to see you this morning.” 

“I’m more of a dog person, anyway,” Keith replies, chuckling to himself. The frown on his face was gone, replaced with a neutral expression that bordered on a smile. To Shiro, he looked a bit like the cadets in the army - trying so hard to be serious, but wanting to grin at themselves. It tickled Shiro to watch Keith play with Black, sometimes getting close enough to almost touch her no matter how she swiped at him. 

He left them like that while he showered, thinking to himself how nice it was to have someone to speak to in the quiet Saturday morning - one he normally spent easing himself out of bed just past dawn when his internal military alarm woke him, walking to the gym, doing laps in the pool after sweating in the weight room, and walk home. One of Shiro’s greatest indulgent pleasures was his gym-time but it could be lonely out there without a spotter. 

After his shower he moved to the kitchen to fix himself breakfast, fighting his tiny smile on his face. Keith floated in, his familiar little frown decorating his expression. Shiro pushed back his smile even further, not wanting to antagonize his guest.  

“What’s wrong?” Shiro asked as he cracked an egg into a bowl, getting ready to make himself his favorite breakfast. 

Keith shrugged himself into the seat at the kitchen table. “Seeing you make breakfast makes me hungry.” 

Shiro cracked another egg into his bowl and thought about Keith’s words before he answered, considering himself carefully. 

“Do you think it’s related to your body?” He asked, grabbing half a red bell pepper out of the fridge. Even cold he liked how it smelled. 

Keith didn’t answer right away and when Shiro turned to look he saw Keith face down in the table, head buried in his arms. His hair hung over his shoulders and down his back in a way that made Shiro want to pet his head like a parent might comfort a child in the middle of a pouting fit, but he knew he couldn’t do that - corporeal form or not. Keith wouldn’t have appreciated the blithe reaction. 

Instead, Shiro quietly made his breakfast much faster than he intended, shoving it into his face to try and avoid Keith’s mood going from sour to angry. 

As his dish clattered into the sink Keith peaked an eye up from his arms. 

“How many eggs were in that omelette?” 

“Six?” 

Keith put his face down again, groaning. “That’s way too many for a normal person.” 

Shiro blushed. 

\---

They drove to Atlas despite the fact that they were technically closed on the weekends. Shiro let them in and turned the alarm off, punching his code into the little buttons while Keith hovered behind him, watching his moves. 

They came here to avoid Matt and do some research together, so after turning the lights on Shiro led Keith into his office. Technically, it was the manager’s office, with room for every employee to hang their things or do some paperwork, but the owner of the mortuary rarely used the space, preferring to work at the front desk where sunlight came through the glass doors. So, the office was mostly Shiro’s. 

Boxes full of old paperwork stood stacked in one corner. Shiro wanted to get rid of it but his boss refused to let him, always going on and on about how one day they would appreciate paper records, especially when “the internet ended”. His desk was in the other corner, neatly organized with Shiro’s work-related calendar, reference books, updated Nevada law codes, and brochures for families to peruse. 

The only personal objects on his desk were two framed photos - one of himself and Matt on the first day of their recruitment, and the second a childhood photo of himself and his grandfather - as well as his dog tags, hanging from a desk lamp and glinting in the artificial light. One was bent and torn from the accident, the other somehow perfectly fine. 

Two nice chairs sat across from his desk, for his clients. Bookshelves with textbooks decorated one wall, along with some neutral art that was hung there long before Shiro was employed. His license was framed. Other than that, the office was plain. He didn’t spend much time in it, usually down in the preparatory rooms or the crematory proper or the chapel, but when the other employees were in he had time to sit and file paperwork at the end of the day. 

Shiro liked his office. It reminded him of the officer’s quarters in the bases he had lived in without the sterile and painfully plain lack of any personality. He knew his office wasn't flashy, but it was his. 

Keith sat in Shiro’s chair, putting his feet up on the desk. 

Even in his heavy boots, his legs were long. His shirt rode up his stomach, revealing a tiny swath of skin. Shiro turned red and coughed, awkward. 

_ “Maybe you should go on a real date if you’re this desperate,” _ he thought to himself.

“You gonna tell me why we came here if you don’t have to work?” Keith asked, putting his hands behind his head and fully leaning back. The sight was odd - Keith was inclined but the chair he was sitting in hadn’t moved, like he was some living optical illusion. 

“Because I have an idea and I don’t want to get caught by Matt.”

Keith pursed his lips and oh, yes, Shiro certainly was a gay disaster. His face flushed for the second time, and he powered through his explanation, hoping Keith wouldn’t notice his nerves. 

“I was thinking it’s possible other people have been in this situation so we should try to find them. Maybe we can ask a medium if there’s one available in the city,” he said, willing his blush to go away. 

“Plus, we could go see your mother.” 

Keith’s eyes jolted wide, his mouth frowning for real. He put his boots back on the floor and stood, arms crossed in front of himself defensively. 

“Why?”

Shiro felt his stomach drop, wondering if he had done something wrong. “You don’t want to see your mom? She left something here when she came to ask about, uh, funeral stuff,” he said, trailing off at the end. 

Keith looked away but his energy changed. The room chilled as he ground his teeth thinking for an answer. His emotion was all over his face - betrayal, hurt, anger. Shiro panicked, not wanting Keith to boil over, so he moved quickly and stuck his hand in his coat pocket, pulling out the broken, gold locket Krolia had dropped on her last visit. 

He approached Keith, offering the locket like a gift. “She had this. It looks special, so I want to give it back.” 

Keith’s face changed, his expression only sadness as he stared at the heart-shaped locket. 

“Put that away.” 

Shiro did, confused. “Is this about her boyfriend? You said-” 

“You can go see her,” Keith said, his voice rough and thick. “But I’m staying in the car.” 

Shiro nodded, not knowing what else to say. He couldn’t wrap his head around Keith’s change in emotion. Krolia had seemed distraught - no less so than the average mother mourning a child lost. Plus, Keith had spoken so highly of her just the day before, but now he was upset. Maybe, he wondered, the locket wasn’t a keepsake of Keith’s infancy, like he had assumed, based on the baby photo and lock of hair tucked inside, but of something else, or another person. 

Shiro tucked the locket away and changed the subject as he sat down in his chair, moving around Keith to get there. He booted up his ancient computer, listening to it whir as it warmed up. The old girl worked just fine, she was simply a little loud, but he actively avoided Keith’s eye contact anyway - knowing he was being shot a look. 

“As I was saying - we should find a specialist. Someone who can help us with ghost stuff,” he said, watching the little spinning wheel on his computer turn as it booted. 

Keith, now looking through the book titles on Shiro’s shelf, grunted his answer. Shiro took it as an agreement and started clacking away on his keyboard. 

\---

Two hours later, Shiro was pulling into the driveway of a pink and blue Victorian mansion on the other side of town. Keith looked out the window their entire drive, so as to avoid silence Shiro had played through some of his favorite music - oldies and classic rock that reminded him of his grandfather. Now, though, with even the engine quiet he was reminded of the morning’s feelings - a prickling on his skin as though his body was telling him something was wrong. 

He looked at Keith, who was sliding through the closed door of the car to stand on the pavement, his arms crossed. The temperature in the car went up with him out of it, but the uneasy feeling remained. 

He stepped out and went around the car as if to direct Keith, but he was already walking up to the front door of the house. Shiro’s grandfather had called them “painted ladies” and he understood why after looking at the incredible detail put into the exterior. Not a single spot was left unadorned - everything, even the window trim and the eves, were a garish shade of pink. If it wasn’t pink, it was a pale blue. Gold and purple accents broke up the patterning, but altogether it was a wonder of a sight, so overwhelming that Shiro had to stare for a long while before he could make sense of each section on it’s own.

Upon the pink-and-blue-swirl door a sign hung, gold lettering pressed into black wood. 

_ ALLURA’S PSYCHIC BOUTIQUE (APPOINTMENTS NECESSARY) _

Keith looked unimpressed. “We don’t have an appointment.” 

Shiro shifted from one foot to the other. “Yeah, well, I’m bringing her a real ghost. Maybe she’ll be excited.” 

He pushed through the door after finding no doorbell, and called out a shaky “Hello?”

The entryway he called into smelled so heavily of incense he nearly choked. Red and purple velvet curtains hung in front of him, blocking his view into the rest of the house. Dark wood benches flanked his left and right, creating a small waiting room of sorts. He stepped in and looked around himself, unsure of exactly what he was searching for.

A click of high heeled shoes came from behind the curtain, going back and forth as whoever it was - Allura? - moved to and fro. Shiro’s nervousness prevented him from barling forward even though the cold feeling of being near Keith, especially so close, crept over him like skim ice on a lake. 

A clock, hung above the main curtain ticked a steady rhythm as if to prove to Shiro his time was slipping by. He swallowed. 

Just as Keith started to open his mouth to speak - presumably to tell Shiro they should just leave - a hand, decorated in glittering jewels and gold, sprung through the divide in the curtains and flung them back, revealing the most beautiful woman Shiro had ever seen. 

Her white hair, thick and curly, was piled on top of her head with ruby-red chopsticks stuck through the bun. Small tendrils framed her delicate face, adorned with a thin gold tiara across her forehead. She was tall - almost as tall as Shiro in the stilettos that poked out from underneath the white, gauzy dress she was wrapped in. Her eyes - a clear blue that stood out against her dark skin- looked straight through Shiro, to Keith. 

“You didn’t make an appointment,” she said, her voice holding a strange and unplaceable accent. Something a little British, something African, something a Southern belle might speak with. 

“I know-,” 

She waved her hand. “Not you.  _ You _ ,” she continued, cutting Shiro off. Her hand pointed directly at Keith, her fingernail nearly dipping into his chest. 

“Well, can’t really pick up the phone,” he said, unaffected. His drawl was low and careful, like he was controlling himself against something. 

Allura rolled her eyes and stepped back, holding the curtain open and gesturing Shiro through. “I have a Ouija board.” 

The inside of her house-turned-office was just as elaborately decorated as the outside was - every corner painted pinks and blues, purples running through the seams. Every wall had shelves, some built in, some free-standing, nearly all of them crooked or warped in some way. If the wall was blank, a tapestry or painting decorated it. Skulls, pinned butterflies, and taxidermied animals made up the farthest wall, while jewels, gold swords, and glass vials sat on the closest one. Books were everywhere, stuck between other items, piled on the floor, and even on every step of the stairs that led away from the entryway and into the great unknown of the second floor. 

Allura turned on her heel and walked to the right, into what was likely the original dining room. Now, though, the dining table - large enough to fit six - was pushed into the corner. It’s tablecloth, a black velvet and lace ornate monstrosity, was covered with candle wax and a wooden medicine cabinet. An enormous, gilded painting hung over the table, so large it was pulling away from the wall, as if the wire were about a break. The painting showed a gentleman, dressed in clothing reminiscent of the nineteenth century, with a large red moustache and a wink on his face. 

Shiro stared at the painting, feeling as if it could see him just as well as he could see it. 

Allura  _ click-clicked  _ her way to the cabinet and began rifling through the drawers, pulling out gems, herbs, vials, and packets of paper. With her supplies organized in some incomprehensible manner she turned again to look at the two of them, her gaze just as piercing as before. 

“So,” she started. “Do you wish to leave or to stay?”

Shiro opened his mouth but she waved her glittering hand, silencing him. Keith stifled a laugh, and spoke for himself. 

“Stay? I guess?” 

Allura turned away from them and stuffed some of her selections into a purple velvet draw-string bag before shoving it into Shiro’s hand. “There. You use this and he stays forever. A brave choice for one so young.”

Shiro pulled the strings to look inside but Allura clamped her hand over his, stalling him. “Curious are you? Well don’t look here, or else your friend will stay with me forever. I assume you want him to stay with you.” 

Shiro cleared his throat before responding. The incense made his mouth feel thick with something, as if smoke was clogging him up. “I think you’re mistaken. We want to get Keith back into his body.” 

“No point putting a spirit back into a corpse, my mortician friend.” 

“How did you - wait, he’s not a corpse yet. His body is in the hospital. We went there yesterday.” 

Allura’s eyes went wide before she snatched the purple bag out of Shrio’s hands, quickly disassembling it. 

When she turned her face was different. She no longer looked as if she was about to roll her eyes out of her skull; now she was focused, curious herself about what Shiro was about to say. 

“Explain,” she said, ushering them further into the house until they reached a sitting room. 

A round table with a cloth-covered  _ something  _ in the middle (Shiro presumed a crystal ball) sat in the center of the room, that was otherwise decorated with mismatched couches and chairs. This room had more diversity of color than any other space had - a green couch sat against a pale yellow wall, and a navy blue cabinet stood sentry in the far corner, two mirrors hung on the outside showed Shiro a glimpse of himself and Keith as the moved to the center table. 

Allura sat in one of the high-backed dark wood chairs that sat around the table, waving to indicate Shiro and Keith should follow suit. 

Shiro blinked away the incense in his brain and re-focused himself. A creeping sense of dead hung over him but he wasn’t sure it was all from Keith anymore. The room stayed warm, barely dropping in temperature despite Keith’s proximity, so he knew his racing heart must be reacting to something else - perhaps the slight wide-eyes look Allura had. 

“Well,” Shiro began, unsure of where exactly to start. “Two days ago a woman - Keith’s mother - came into my mortuary and after she left Keith was there behind her. He seems to not be able to leave my side, but his body is still alive, so we want to get him back into it.” 

“Why would Keith’s mother come to a mortuary if her son was not dead yet?” 

“She was, er, looking to prepare,” he answered. Most people were so awkward around conversations about death that he wasn’t quite sure what the acceptability level of a Medium might be. She did not seem that phased though, her face remaining the same as Shiro told his story and answered her questions. 

“Spirits attach themselves to people, places, or objects. Did you know each other before? Lovers, maybe?” 

Shiro blushed, stammering. “N-no, we didn’t know each other before now.” 

Allura’s eyebrow quirked with an un-given response before she continued. “Keith, did you live in the building the mortuary is in?” 

“Nope.” He was curt, not elaborating at all. Shiro glanced sideways at him, eyes lingering on Keith’s little frown. 

“Do you own something of Keith’s?” 

Shiro shook his head. “His mother left a locket in my office that I need to return, but that belonged to her, not him.” 

Allura looked at Keith to confirm, and when he nodded his head she at back to ponder something. Her nailed tapped against the table, the noise sharp even though the table had a cloth on it. 

“Lockets can be significant to the wearer or owner. I would suspect that may be the object Keith is attached to,” she said. Her voice was half-distracted, as if she was still pondering her own conclusion. 

“However,” she continued, “It it exceptionally strange a spirit might still leave a living body. We do not tend to leave ourselves unless through astral projection, and even then we are called back after some time.” 

The room fell quiet as Allura thought about what next to say. In her silence, she stood and moved to a shelf of books, pulling out some and flipping through them. She read quickly, Shiro noticed, her eyes scanning pages within seconds. He sat awkwardly as she read, waiting for an answer, but instead she left the room without a word of explanation.

The room was even quieter without Allura rustling through pages of ancient texts, but Shiro did not speak to fill the silence. He glanced at Keith, whose frown was even deeper now. His arms were crossed and one leg was slung over the other. His posture was hunched over, as if he intended to fold in on himself. 

“Look-,” Shiro started, about to tell Keith that everything would be fine, when a door slammed somewhere behind them, making them both jump. 

A man in a blue t-shirt and dark jeans, ripped at the knees, burst into the room. His hair was cropped close to his head but still stuck up awkwardly, as if he had just woken up. Two bright-blue triangles were drawn (tattooed?) on his face, high on his cheekbones. 

“Oh, sorry, man. Didn’t know you were here - I do the appointments. Did you have an appointment? You need one.” 

“Well, no, but Allura let us in,” Shiro answered, standing out of his seat to shake the man’s hand.

“I’m Lance.” 

“Shiro.” 

The man - Lance - moved around them but did not acknowledge Keith. He walked through the other end of the room, going where Allura had gone without saying another word to them. 

Shiro watched him go, bemused. 

Noises began to come from throughout the house now that Lance was here - small bangs and clashes, his laugh, footsteps following one another. No one came back into the room, though, as if the two were dancing around the room Shiro and Keith sat in. He could hear their noise coming from all directions, but it was almost impossible to track. 

Shiro wondered if Lance was some supernatural creature with how the noises echoed, thinking he might ask Allura when she returned.

After what felt like ages - time marked by an increasing ache in Shiro’s butt from the hard wood of the chair - Allura returned, Lance right behind her. She was holding a black, leather book, cracked open down the middle. A red bookmark hung out of it, holding the pages as the fluttered from her quick steps. Lance, on the other hand, was typing away on his phone, a small pink heart charm swinging as he walked.

“Anyway, Hunk and Pidge are gonna be stuck in the castle overnight. But I’ll get them tomorrow, Princess.” 

Allura hummed but did not say anything, instead training her eyes on Shiro and Keith. 

“Sometimes,” she began without preamble, “Beings may be stuck between life and death. They cling to some  _ thing  _ so as to escape purgatory, though they end up in some kind of Limbo anyway. I suspect that is what Keith is experiencing.” 

She shut her book, dust coming from the pages after it thumped closed. 

“You two must figure out why Keith clings, so. Find the object - or person - and that will clue you in on how to revive his body. For example, a child that clings to his mother must grow up to be independent.” 

She gazed at them, the blue of her eyes matching precisely the blue of Lance’s tattoos, and expected them to understand, but Shiro was utterly confused by her example. A child? 

“What if we can’t figure it out?” Keith asked, speaking for only the second time. 

“That is when you make a choice.” 

Keith nodded, and stood to walk out of the room. Shiro watched him go for a moment before turning tail and looking back at Allura. 

“Before we go - how do you feed a ghost?” 

Allura frowned at them, and Lance laughed before answering. “You don’t,” he said, his voice punctuated. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading as always!! beta'd by @voxane. follow me on twit @softiewrites
> 
> Did you know I'm also writing a s8-fix it, involving time travel, a surprise baby, and the race to find Allura? Check out Boundaries for even more sheith nonsense (:


End file.
